More baby laughs

We have a nap problem at our house. As in our baby doesn't care for them. AT ALL. Yesterday we took a trip out to Oakville for a baby shower. Since we didn't get out of bed until 9:30, there was no nap before we left. I hoped Stella would sleep in the car, which she did briefly. But it didn't last. This social butterfly has to be part of the action. As long as there are people around she has to be spreading the love and flirting up a storm. So no nap while we were there for 3 hours. She slept again on the way home but not nearly enough. When we got home we crashed in bed and I won the well fought nap battle. Stella slept until just about bedtime, woke up screaming so she went straight to bed.

Baby sleep seems to be a constant war. Mommies and Daddies against babies. It's the number one thing I talk about with all my mommy friends: how to get the baby to sleep. There are a million different strategies out there, and an equivalent number of books written. Last week I attended a sleep seminar that scared the bejeezus out of me. The facilitator claimed that inadequate sleep is the same as a nutritionally poor diet. What's a mommy to make of that? Am I doing my child a disservice by not helping her get the sleep she needs. The main point of this woman's seminar was that you need to put your baby to bed awake, drowsy but awake. She also emphasised not to associate eating with sleep. It made me realize that we do a million things "wrong" and definitely not by the books.

But, what we've done seems to work. We have a healthy baby, who sleeps well at night. She is a smiling chunky sweetheart. So we'll continue with our own sleep theories: if it's not broke, don't fix it.

So back to the baby laughs... this is what you get when the baby takes a good nap. Now that's motivation..... >


Someone sent me this note awhile ago... It goes right along with todays theme... Sleep training from the baby's perspective:

OK, here's my situation. My Mommy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great-- I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep thru the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other babies, and it seems like it's pretty common after Mommies have had us for around 6 months.

Here's the thing: these Mommies don't really need to sleep. It's just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep--they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle. It goes like this:
Night 1--cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it's hard. It's hard to see your Mommy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it's for her own good.
Night 2--cry every 2 hours until you get fed.
Night 3--every hour.

Most Mommies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mommies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mommies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don't give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT'S HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the change.

If you have an especially alert Mommy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mommy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it. Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT!
I cried for anyreason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I hadn't eaten pears since lunch, what's up with that? The cat said "meow". I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. Hah. Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right--doesn' t matter! Keep crying!! It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am.

You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mommies' internal clocks.

P.S. Don't let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

Jump Around

Who knew someday I would be quoting a House of Pain song on my mommy-blog. Just another thing that tells me I've reached Mommyhood. The other thing this week? Yesterday I spent the entire day with barf in my hair. When said incident occurred I was on my way out to the grocery store, so I just tied it back in a pony tail. Then the day got away from me and I totally forgot until the afternoon before Jeff came home. Awesome. Before you judge me, baby-barf is not like regular barf. It has a sweet milky smell to it, still not a good reason to walk around with it in your hair. Back to the jumping, here is Miss Stella rocking the jumperoo and telling a story about it.

Baby Laughs!

Even after blood work day you can still squeeze a giggle out of Miss Stella. Her other new trick is raspberries, but we have yet to catch that on video. It's a long(ish) video and we were bouncing so it's kind of all over the place... the giggle happens at about a minute. This one's dedicated to Auntie Alicia.

Will you remember?

Dear Stella,
Will you remember all the moments? The kisses on your forehead in the middle of the night, lying on the floor with Daddy reading story books, the way you giggle when the "kissy monster" gets under your neck, the way your little head fits into the crook of Mommy's neck when you're sleepy, the bedtime chats with Daddy over bottles, waking Mommy and Daddy up with your chatting in the morning.
We'll never forget any of it.
Love,
Daddy & Mommy

Stella rules tummy time

So the kid finally got it. She realized that lying on her tummy didn't have to mean she was on fire. This of course resulted in her first accidental roll over. Of course I was the naughty mommy/wife and let her lie on her tummy while Jeff was in the shower. He *just* missed it. We'll keep trying to recreate the perfect conditions.

A busy couple of weeks!

I feel so behind on keeping track of this month! Right before my birthday our laptop had an "accident". 2 years ago when we sent it away to have the powercord connection fixed it came back with a crack. We never did anything with it as just getting the power outlet fixed took weeks. Unfortunately last week this came to a header. Jeff closed the laptop and one hinge snapped! The screen was only half held on! Jeff immediately called as it was still under warranty. The un-named companies response of course: "Why didn't you send it back right away?". So after a lot of "Can I speak to your manager", and continuing up the chain of management, Jeff got our laptop fixed for free! So finally it's coming home tonight.

My birthday was wonderful. I had spent weeks dreading it. Reason number one was the enormity of the number. Reason number two was who different this birthday would be. Past birthdays had been spent at the spa, lunch with friends, probably afternoon drinks followed by evening drinks and a very late bedtime. This year I faced a day spent solo (well solo except for my mini me). But all in all it was a great day! Stella and I went shopping in the morning at my favourite place to buy baby clothes, Joe Fresh. Then in the afternoon I decided we had to get out of the house eventhough it was pooring so we grabbed a latte and headed to baby group. The best part of the day? Jeff's sister, Cheryl, her husband Adam and their cute pup, Lindy came into babysit. Jeff organized a great group of friends to head to Stone's place for a good night out. I had an absolute blast. Since I've had Stella I've had some difficulty in large groups, mainly cause sleep deprievation had turned my brain to mush and I had trouble carrying on conversations. I definitely felt like my old self... just new and improved as a momma! Plus I had a killer dress from H&M and kick ass boots.

So much more to report but this has already taken me two days to get down!

And time marchs on.....

We're already well into March and my little blueberry is growing like a spring time flower! Today was our 4 month visit to Dr. Singwi and along with her 4 month vaccines she had all her measurements done. Today's weight was 13 pounds and 7.8 ounces. She's gained 2 pounds and 14 ounces since her last appointment on January 6th. I thought she would have gained a little bit more, but when you spend the better part of 2 months with hyperthyroid on medications than you burn through some calories.

Stella had a great visit with her Nanny and Poppy. We spent some time yesterday thinking about what kinds of things she'll be doing when we fly to Georgia; sitting up, hopefully finally rolling over and even starting into some solids.

Today we chatted with the doctor about starting solids. I don't really have any plans to start anything until she's 5 months old. She's started watching us eat very closely, but has yet to reach for anything. She does like to lick apples and grapes!

All this talk about things loving forward makes me want to hold on to how little and sweet she is right now.

Baby's first words... kind of.

This is the cutest thing in the world. Stella was lying on the floor playing with my mom when all of a sudden she made a sound that sounded exactly like "hi". And it almost sounds like she meant to say it. It's funny cause Jeff always says "hi" to here and she smiles like crazy. Who knows, maybe next week it'll be "hey momma, get me a cookie!".

Stella's First Swing

To celebrate her 4 month birthday Stella decided to go to the park for her first swing. We think she enjoyed herself! She's been going through what I like to call her "development spurt". She's talking more and more every day and starting to hold on to her toys. I can't believe 4 months has gone by already.